Imagine that you have one week to live. I know – sorry – that’s such a cheesy way to start a post. If you were really dying though, you’d feel anything but cheese. In our culture we like to pretend that death’s not real. We invent all manner of fantasy to insulate us from the idea that our time here is so desperately short.
Close your computer, take 15 minutes of silence and imagine that this is your last week – give it enough time. Make it real.
If you do a good job, you’ll look at everything differently – friendship, marriage, kids, possessions, career, worries, fears, goals, broken relationships, values. You’ll find that death brings a quality to life that “immortality” can’t.
Living with death is a quick remedy for the bullshit that we allow to move into our minds, our tendency to feel like the very cosmos has set it’s will against us, that life’s not fair, that we need more.
So many times I feel like I’m living in a giant, shiny, silver tube, where all I can see is a glimmer of what’s ahead, completely blind to the beauty and the weight that surrounds me. The not-so-distant reality of my death makes me sad, but brings with it the reminder that I have a great life.